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Welcome to The Lonely Palette, the podcast that returns art history to the masses, one painting at a time. Each episode, host Tamar Avishai picks a painting du jour, interviews unsuspecting museum visitors in front of it, and then dives deeply into the object, the movement, the social context, and anything and everything else that will make it as neat to you as it is to her. For more information, visit thelonelypalette.com | Twitter @lonelypalette | Instagram @thelonelypalette.
- 220 - Episode 72: Joe Rosenthal's "Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima" (1945)
“While the men prepared to replace the first flag, I was able to position myself for a picture, the elements of which were composed by the men themselves, and the wind, weather, midday lighting, and the luck of timing.” - Joe Rosenthal, Associated Press
At the end of the war in Western Europe, with the war in the Pacific still going strong, America was a tired country that needed a patriotic jolt. You can only position yourself so well: good photographer, heroic moment of reprieve amidst the horrific fighting, camera crew tailing the soldiers, hoping to capture even the slightest sense of what the sons and brothers of the nation were fighting for. But all the preparedness in the world can’t bank on the beauty of luck.
This is the story of the luckiest snapshot ever taken.
Music used:
The Andrews Sisters, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen"
The Blue Dot Sessions, “Sunday Lights,” “Cherry Heath,” “Curious Kepler,” “Arlan Vale,” “Dreadnaut Files,” “Silent Ocean,” “Chromium Blush,” “Mencher and Polk,” “The Silver Hatch,” “10c Coffee”
Bob Dylan, “The Ballad of Ira Hayes”
Support the show by becoming a patron or by just sending us a tip.
Fri, 11 Sep 2026 - 40min - 219 - Episode 71: Looking Back on 10 Years of The Lonely Palette (with Julie Shapiro)
"Art isn't what you see. It's what you help others see." - Edgar Degas | "Close your eyes/sometimes it helps."- Rhianna
A little over ten years ago, on May 4th, 2016, I swallowed hard and hit publish on my very first episode of The Lonely Palette. I had the domain, I had the website, I had a mic and closet, and I had a dream. Public radio, someday, but for now, speak the art history lecture I'd always wanted to hear in school, the one that would remind people that artists were human beings too, and that art history and art museums weren't only for the snootiest amongst us. That first episode led to a second, and a third, and here I am, a decade later, millions of downloads under my belt, feeling that same pressure, curiosity, excitement, dread, and magic, every single day.
Milestones are both arbitrary and quite useful. It matters to stop, look around, look back. And it feels good to talk, and to be listened to. So I asked my friend and colleague, Julie Shapiro, the best listener in the biz, to sit down with me and talk about art, craft, the changing industry, failure, and success. Ten years of making a show entirely by myself - and entirely for the love of it. Enjoy.
Music used:
The Blue Dot Sessions, "Helado," "Red City Theme," "Paper Feather"
Haas, Kowert, Tice, "The Decade"
Support the show by becoming a patron or by just sending us a tip.
Tue, 23 Jun 2026 - 1h 27min - 218 - TLP Interview with Helena De Groot, Audio Producer and Sound Artist
"The deeper you go, the less indulgent it will be.” - Helena's stickie note
Helena De Groot is an audio maker, but, really, she’s an audio artist. Her series, Creation Myth, just dropped in full as part of the CBC’s show, Personally. Personallyis about the most personal experiences that audio makers that probe within themselves, laying themselves bare, for our benefit, as the best memoirs do.
Creation Myth is, ostensibly, about the question whether or not to have kids. But as you’ll hear, both in listening to the series, and to my conversation with Helena today, it’s about craft and memoir, parenting yourself and parenting others, care and compassion. It’s a masterclass in the creative process itself - that is, creating. Creating life, both your own and another person’s. Creating stories. And creating art that reaches people, sometimes in surprising places.
Music used:
The Blue Dot Sessions, "Aourourou," "Lina My Queen," "On Top of It"
Support the show by becoming a patron or by just sending us a tip.
Tue, 7 Apr 2026 - 1h 35min - 217 - TLP Interview with The Cheeky Scholar
Earlier this year, I had a really, really great conversation with Dr. Lara Ayad, host of the podcast The Cheeky Scholar - and I'm proud to share it today. We cast our net really wide, talking at first about the role of artists in society, my favorite museums, but then we got into it. We got into it. Because Lara and I are both, in the parlance of the moment, free speech bros. And if you’re going to be a good artist, or a good art critic, you can’t be afraid of censorship, and you sure as hell can’t practice it.
Lara and I talk everything from Anselm Kiefer to Dr. Seuss, and what we came to realize is this: you have to open your mouth. You have to look at world with open eyes and an open mind. And nothing shuts all those things – mouth, eyes, and mind – more than fear. Fear of offending. Fear of saying the wrong thing even when you’re trying to say the right thing. Or fear that full-on disagreeing will put the whole of your values, your entire moral compass, in question. What will people think of me? Am I still allowed in the club? Am I still a good person?
Full disclosure: it’s this fear, and these questions, that made me almost not share this conversation. But that’s nuts. And when you listen, you’ll hear why. Freedom of speech is one of the most foundational tenets we have in a liberal society – and this has always been the case, regardless of who had the cultural power to cancel whom.
Support the show by becoming a patron or by just sending us a tip.
Fri, 26 Sep 2025 - 1h 22min - 216 - Bonus - Why Public Radio Matters: A Conversation Between Rumble Strip's Erica Heilman and Jay Allison
It's September, and time to get back to work. That means defending public radio against federal defunding, exploring its core values, and taking an honest look at how we got here.
I'm proud to share this conversation between my Hub & Spoke colleague Erica Heilman, host of the exquisite and unflinching Rumble Strip, and her buddy Jay Allison, founder of Transom, producer of The Moth Radio Hour, and generally one of the most stalwart producers in the industry, about why public radio matters.
Support the show by becoming a patron or by just sending us a tip.
Fri, 5 Sep 2025 - 26min - 215 - In Plain Sight - Ep. 3: "Go Deeper"
"You don't go look at a Rothko; you go inside a Rothko." - Claire, visitor, National Gallery of Art
Modern art. Two little words that strike so much fear in the heart of the average museum goer. When you're used to straightforward, legible paintings and sculptures, Modernism can be pretty destabilizing. Pretty weird. Canvases are now spattered with paint, or lined with grids, or barely containing the shapes that seem to want to float away. A car tire is cut apart and reassembled. A giant mobile floats in the air, catching the breeze.
And it's natural to ask, well, what does this mean? What is this piece about? How did I just go from Post-Impressionism to Fauvism to Cubism to Futurism, when the subject matter of these paintings all kind of look similarly shattered and rebuilt and hastily glued back together again? How could I ever understand the nuances of this stuff without a graduate degree?
But I promise you, you can.
Music Used:
The Blue Dot Session, “Tall Harvey,” “Highway 430,” “Ranch Hand,” “Cornicob,” “The Melt,” “A Common Pause,” “Within the Garden Walls,” “Basketliner”
Thu, 7 Aug 2025 - 20min - 214 - In Plain Sight - Ep. 2: "Listen Closer"
"Questions and the search for answers, and the appreciation of beauty, and then wanting to share it with other people, to go look at it closely together. Then you realize you've got something that can feed you for the rest of your life as a career." - Emily Pegues, curator, National Gallery of Art.
Museum curators are an intimidating species. Those experts with their degrees. How could they possibly remember what it was like to walk into a museum for the first time and feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of history on display? How could they imagine what it’s like to be a visitor who doesn’t care about a landscape with cows? After all, we’re not born knowing the stories these paintings tell, or how to seek them out.
In the second episode in our series, we’re going to explore how a long look into an artwork can inadvertently engage another sense: hearing. Hearing the stories that a painting can tell. And the curators at the National Gallery are here to help. Help put us in the best possible position to receive these stories; help us listen to what these paintings are saying to us. And how to imagine these stories moving through the centuries, embracing us the way they once embraced them for the first time, and making them want to do what they do.
Music Used:
The Blue Dot Sessions, “Gentle Son,” “Pinky,” “Origami Guitar,” “Arizona Moon,” “Tangeudo,” “The Melt,” “Lina My Queen,” “Brer Rhetta,” “Georgia Overdrive”
Thu, 31 Jul 2025 - 25min - 213 - In Plain Sight - Ep. 1: "Look Longer"
"There are different levels of looking. And it's exciting to bring people to the different levels." - Estelle Quain, docent, National Gallery of Art
How do YOU feel when you walk into an art museum? Is it familiar? Intimidating? Do you have a guard trying to shush you, or an overly-enthusiastic friend trying to tell you what to like? Are you joyful? Are you sad? Are you… bored?
You’re not alone. Whether it’s your first time in an art museum or your 10,000th, everyone’s going to respond differently. That’s why we made this podcast.
In June of 2024, I was honored to be the Storyteller-in-Residence at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. I spent a week in the museum talking to and recording as many people as I could: curators, museum staff, visitors. We talked about what brought them to the museum, and what keeps them there. We talked about what makes the museum experience transcendent, and, bluntly, what can get in the way of that - what stands in the way of connecting with an artwork, what makes them feel like they never learned the secret knock to access this world. After all, in order to make a space inviting, you have to understand why some people can feel left out.
In this three-part series, a collaboration between the National Gallery of Art and The Lonely Palette, we’re going to explore the idea of what it means to open yourself up to an art museum, one artwork, or conversation, at a time. And how the tools to do this have been here for you all along, literally in plain sight, just waiting for you.
Today, in the first episode of our series, I talked to various museum staff about preconceived notions of art that visitors bring with them to the museum. We discussed how their jobs are to meet visitors where they’re at, and to encourage them to go further. To look longer.
Music Used:
The Blue Dot Sessions, “Brer Rhetta,” “Greylock,” “Alustrat,” Vela Vela,” “Caprese,” “Setting Pace,” “Our Fingers Cold”
Thu, 24 Jul 2025 - 25min - 212 - Ep. 70 - Norman Rockwell's "Freedom of Speech" (1943)
“I was showing the America I knew and observed to others who might not have noticed.” - Norman Rockwell
Whether arguing for soft versus hard taco shells or the Neo-Nazi right to march in Skokie, freedom of speech is a fundamental right we all enjoy as Americans. But it turns out that telling people that is pretty complicated, actually. Thank goodness we have Norman Rockwell, virtuosic photorealistic painter and America's crown prince of nostalgia, to help us understand our fundamental freedoms from the intimacy of the magazines fanned across the coffee tables inside our homes.
Music used:
The Andrews Sisters, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen"
The Blue Dot Sessions, “The Zeppelin,” “Lord Weasel,” “No Smoking,” “Transeless,” “Silver Lanyard,” “Ice Tumbler,” “Sino de Cobre,” “Georgia Overdrive,” “The Consulate”
Support the show by becoming a patron or by just sending us a tip.
Fri, 4 Jul 2025 - 38min - 211 - TLP Interview with Judith Wechsler, Art Historian and Filmmaker
"Walter, let's go for a walk." - Judith Wechsler, in the arcades of Paris.
Professor Judith Wechsler is an art historian, filmmaker, writer, researcher, Francophile, and leading expert on Paul Cezanne and Honoré Daumier. She’s the daughter of a major religious philosopher. Her resume reads like a who’s who of 20th century art historians – Meyer Shapiro, Linda Nochlin, Leo Steinberg, Gershom Sholem. Her films tell the story of 20th century Europe, image by image.
She was also my grad school advisor. And she’s now a dear friend. Hers is the voice that lingers in my head, reminding me to show my work. Her background in dance and filmmaking speak to someone who, like me, sees art and art history as something that can be understood not just academically, but creatively, and interpreted creatively. You just need to make sure there’s a net below that cliff to catch you.
We all have a mentor, and Judith is mine. This conversation is deeply personal. It’s the story of a student, and her teacher, and the questions and answers that craft our journeys.
Music used:
The Blue Dot Sessions, "A Little Powder," "Basketliner"
Support the show by becoming a patron or by just sending us a tip.
Mon, 12 May 2025 - 47min - 210 - Ep. 69 - Yee Sookyung's "Translated Vase" (2011)
“It is not about fixing or mending, but about celebrating the vulnerability of the object and ultimately myself.” - Yee Sookyung
Shattered porcelain is impossible to repair. As impossible as fully, and accurately, reconstructing the past. But who needs that pressure? What if, instead of tossing those shards in the dustbin of history, we acknowledged that the thing will never be what it once was? Maybe then we appreciate the beauty, and the human resilience, of what new things it could be, in the now.
Music used:
Billy Joel, “You May Be Right”
The Blue Dot Sessions, “Littl Jon,” “The Dustbin,” “BlueGarden,” “Nesting,” “A Rush of Clear Water,” “A Common Pause”
Leonard Cohen, “Anthem”
Support the show by becoming a patron or by just sending us a tip.
Fri, 4 Apr 2025 - 23min - 209 - TLP Interview with Annea Lockwood, Artist and Composer
"It's the close focus that draws me into a sound. And then it sort of spreads out and spreads through my body. And I let that happen, and I'm listening in a different way." - Annea Lockwood
The artist and composer Annea Lockwood is not just any musician. She is an artist of sound. She is a composer of art. Her music is performance art, and her art is always, always audio-rich and musical. She sends her microphones into the elements – fire, here, and rivers, in a recent series called Sound Maps, where she captures, among other things, the tonality of the different depths of the water. She loves chanting, tones, drones. She loves what sound does to our body, how we respond to it, how we visualize it. How sound breathes. How we breathe differently around different sounds.
And for me, as an art historian who fell in love with sound, I get it. I think I get it. And this is what today’s conversation is about. Annea joined me to talk about what it means to listen with your body, to experience the silence in all the noise, and the noise in the silence. We talk about the value of musical training versus musical instinct. We talk about how rivers sound different from one another (they really do!). And we explore what an artist from New Zealand who gained prominence in the 1960s burning pianos can teach us about the art of sound, and what she can learn from her 85-year-old self, today.
Music used:
The Blue Dot Sessions, "Brer Rhetta," “A Common Pause,” "Tanguedo"
Episode sponsors:
Support the show by becoming a patron or by just sending us a tip.
Fri, 7 Mar 2025 - 1h 06min - 208 - Ep. 68 - Felix Gonzalez-Torres' "Untitled (March 5th) #2" (1991)
"The only thing permanent is change." - Felix Gonzalez-Torres
There is no way around it. The work of Felix Gonzalez-Torres, a gay, Cuban-American artist who responded to - and died during - the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and 90s, is sad. His work is a memorial, both to a lost generation and to his own partner, Ross. Yet it is through these seemingly banal, industrial, or every day materials, and the powerful metaphor that they represent, that we can best get to the root of what loss can mean. And, maybe, healing as well.
Music used:
The Blue Dot Sessions, “A Little Powder,” “Lerennis,” “Taoudella,” “The Melt,” “Rafter”
Episode sponsors:
With extra special thanks to Martin Young.
Support the show by becoming a patron or by just sending us a tip.
Fri, 21 Feb 2025 - 31min - 207 - TLP Interview with Sebastian Smee, Art Critic, The Washington Post
“In the end, what interests me is the way art connects with life. Because otherwise, I don’t quite understand what it’s for.” - Sebastian Smee
Sebastian Smee has been the art critic for the Washington Post since 2018, but has written extensively about art for every publication you can think of, from here to his native Australia, and winning a Pulitzer prize for criticism along the way. Both his prose and his love of the work leaps off the page and into your lap, offering a guiding hand past the velvet rope, not just for his readers, but for himself: he’s a critic who is constantly looking inward, curious about his own responses to artworks, and what it can teach him about teaching us.
Sebastian joined me to discuss his latest book, “Paris in Ruins: Love, War, and the Birth of Impressionism,” as well as writers on writing, becoming an expert about a movement on deadline, how looking back at the muddiness of a historical moment can help us understand the muddiness of ours, and what happens when art critics are themselves at a loss for the words to express why they just love this or that painting so darn much.
Music used:
The Blue Dot Sessions, “Town Market,” “Night Light,” “Brass Buttons”
Episode sponsor:
Support the show by becoming a patron or by just sending us a tip.
Fri, 7 Feb 2025 - 1h 00min - 206 - Ep. 67 - Cy Twombly's "Second Voyage to Italy (Second Version), 1962"
"My line does not illustrate. It is the sensation of its own realization." - Cy Twombly
Critics have described the work of consummate scribbler Cy Twombly as at once "barely there" and overly academic, but what about us art civilians? What is it about these half-baked scraps, scratch, and scrawl that speaks to our own creative impulses, our own inner children dying to grab the crayon and crush the tip in an ecstatic series of fat, juicy loopdeloops?
Music used:
The Andrews Sisters, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen"
The Blue Dot Sessions, “Inessential,” “Tiny Putty,” “A Burst of Light,” Palms Down,” “Parade Shoes,” “City Limits”
Episode sponsor:
Support the show by becoming a patron or by just sending us a tip.
Mon, 27 Jan 2025 - 26min - 205 - Official Trailer: The Lonely Palette's Upcoming Season
This season, we've got a stellar line-up: Cy Twombly, Lawren Harris, Käthe Kollwitz, and Felix Gonzalez-Torres, to name just a few. We've got interviews with the Washington Post's Sebastian Smee, the artist and composer Annea Lockwood, and more. We've got a whole National Gallery residency! So listen and subscribe, rate and review, and fire up your earbuds for another season of looking with your ears.
If you support the work we do, consider becoming a patron, or simply leaving us a tip.
Thu, 16 Jan 2025 - 03min - 204 - Bonus - Introducing "The Rabbis Go South"
Tamar is alive! The Lonely Palette is alive! But in the year since we last spoke, she's been elbow-deep in audio projects galore - good for the pocketbook, but bad for independent art history podcast productivity. But your patience will be rewarded! And in the meantime, a few announcements:
- Join me and my fellow H&S colleagues at the PRX Podcast Garage in Allson, MA on Wednesday, November 6 for an evening of audio camaraderie. Register here.
- Explore our Hub & Spoke Expo showcase, starting with the first episode of our very first exclusive Expo series, "The Rabbis Go South." (All episodes now available!)Imagine 16 American rabbis jailed for acting on their beliefs. The Rabbis Go South is a thrilling seven-part narrative podcast that uncovers a true story of Jewish-Black solidarity in St. Augustine, Florida during the Civil Rights Movement. An inspiring tale of hope for a divided world.
The Rabbis Go South was created by documentary filmmakers Amy Geller and Gerald Peary. It’s a presentation of the Hub & Spoke Expo.
Fri, 1 Nov 2024 - 23min - 203 - Ep. 66 - Bringing Monuments Home (from PRX's Monumental)
In this special episode of The Lonely Palette, I’m sharing the episode I made for the PRX limited-run podcast series "Monumental," which interrogates the state of monuments across the greater U.S. and what their future says about where we are now and where we’re going.
This was the concluding episode, exploring how some monuments are larger than life, dwarfing us, making us feel small relative to the grandness of history. But what if a monument was human-scaled? What if it made us aware of our bodies in space? We don’t often think about the design choices that go into making a monument, but more and more, a new generation of artists and designers are reimagining what a monument can look and feel like, and the kinds of stories they can hold.
This episode takes us to Montgomery, Alabama to the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, to Shreveport, Louisiana, to the South Side of Chicago, to Navajo Nation in Arizona. It explores how many American monuments to slavery took inspiration from Holocaust memorials in Germany. And it looks at decentralized memorials that are using technology to help bring monuments to the past into the future.
Listen to the Monumental podcast series.
See the images.
Support the show by becoming a patron or by just sending us a tip.
Thu, 7 Mar 2024 - 1h 00min - 202 - Bonus - The Hub & Spoke Radio Hour
The Lonely Palette, as you've heard so often, is an enormously proud founding member of the Hub & Spoke Audio Collective, a group of fiercely independent, story-driven, mind-expanding podcasts. Since 2017, we've supported each other while forging our own paths, prioritizing craft and humane storytelling above all else.
Now, if you haven't noticed, media in general, and podcasting in particular, is in a space some may generously call post-apocalyptic. But an incredible silver lining is that the industry is now recognizing how important independence is. We've been here all along, and with your support, we're not going anywhere.
Please enjoy a bonus episode of the Hub & Spoke Radio Hour, a tasty sampler of a few of our shows in a dapper audio package. Today's theme is love. As the philosopher Haddaway once asked, what is love? It turns out, love can be anything that stirs the heart: passion, grief, affection, kin. The desire to consume; the poignancy of memory. Here at Hub & Spoke, we want to stretch our arms, and ears, around it all.
This episode is hosted by Lori Mortimer and edited by Tamar Avishai. Production assistance from Nick Andersen. Music by Evalyn Parry, The Blue Dot Sessions, and a kiss of Dionne Warwick.
Listen to the full episodes:
- Rumble Strip, “Forrest Foster Lays Karen to Rest”
- Mementos “Cherie’s Letters”
- Ministry of Ideas, “Consumed”
- The Lonely Palette, “Jean-Honoré Fragonard's The Desired Moment (c. 1770)”You can also share the love by supporting our Valentine’s Day fundraiser: www.hubspokeaudio.org/love
Wed, 14 Feb 2024 - 50min - 201 - TLP Interview with Lucy R. Lippard, Art Writer
Since her arrival on the art scene in the 1960s, legendary art writer Lucy Lippard’s work - searing, novelistic, crisp, and endlessly curious - as well as her insights, activism, entrenchment in the art world, and friendships have secured her role as one of the most important minds in art criticism of her generation.
Now, at 86 years old, all of the stuff that she’s collected along the way – photographs, drawings, relationships, grandchildren – is the subject of her new memoir, or, actually, what she calls “Stuff (Instead of a Memoir).” She joined me to talk about the book, but also more than 60 years of writing about art in the way that centered life. After all, “art,” she often quotes, “is what makes life more interesting than art.” Art is the artists, the world they inhabit, their shared cultural references, their shared understanding of the art world and art history. Their human experiences rendered in paint. The stuff they leave behind.
Music Used:
The Blue Dot Sessions, “Lacquer Groove,” “Hardwood Lullaby”Support the show by becoming a patron or by just sending us a tip.
Fri, 29 Dec 2023 - 45min - 200 - TLP Interview with Prudence Peiffer, Author & Content Director, MoMA
In the 1950s and 60s, Coenties Slip—an obscure street on the lower tip of Manhattan overlooking the East River—was home to some of the most iconic artists in history, and who would define American Art during their time there: Robert Indiana, Ellsworth Kelly, Agnes Martin, James Rosenquist, Delphine Seyrig, Lenore Tawney, and Jack Youngerman. As friends and inspirations to one another, these artists created a unique community for unbridled creative expression and experimentation.
Prudence Peiffer is the kind of art historian who understands the importance of context and place, and her book, “The Slip: The New York City Street that Changed American Art Forever” provides the kind of rich context and human detail that textbooks could only dream of. She joined me to discuss the history of these artists, why we have such a hard time seeing artists as people, the friction between accessible artists and their inaccessible art, why watching Robert Indiana eat a mushroom for 39 minutes is actually totally beautiful, and what it means to authentically nudge art history towards inclusion.
Music used:
The Blue Dot Session, “Skyforager”
Rufus Wainwright, “11:11”Support the show by becoming a patron or by just sending us a tip.
Fri, 13 Oct 2023 - 55min - 199 - Bonus - The Lonely Palette Reads Tom Wolfe's The Painted Word
Taking a break from writing about astronauts, Tom Wolfe donned his white suit and strolled to the art museums of New York City, letting the incomprehensible literary works of the movement wash over him like a warm bath of clam broth, and producing what, in the words of art critic Rosalind Krauss, "hit the art world like a really bad, MSG-headache-producing, Chinese lunch." For you, dear listeners, here is the headache-inducing introduction to "The Painted Word," read aloud, as was always intended. This free preview is available to all listeners, but the full chapter, and all future chapters, will be going to $2 (and above) per episode patrons, so pledge that support to find out just what in the heck Wolfe defines as an "apache dance." It's so not what you think it is that it might just be what you think it is. The next chapter will be released on Tuesday, October 17. Don't miss a word, painted or otherwise, by becoming a patron.
Tue, 3 Oct 2023 - 07min - 198 - Bonus - The Lonely Palette Reads Giorgio Vasari on Sandro Botticelli
Giorgio Vasari (1511-74) may have gone down in history as the very first Western art historian, but he is also a messy bench who loves drama, and we are here for it. Listen to his take on Sandro Botticelli from “The Lives of the Artists” (Bondanella trans., 1991), particularly his practical jokes, from which no friend or neighbor escaped unscathed.
Thu, 14 Sep 2023 - 21min - 197 - Ep. 65 - Sandro Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus" (1485-86)
I can't help the way I'm feeling/Goddess of love, please take me to your leader/I can't help, I keep on dancing. - Lady Gaga
The neoplatonic ideal of beauty, the girl on the half-shell, the naked chick riding a clam. Her tilted head and fluttery hair are recognized by everyone and their grandma, but no one - experts included - can explain just why in the heck this painting is so iconic. Shell we take on the challenge?
See the images.
Music used:
Django Reinhardt, “Django’s Tiger”
Joan Baez, “Diamonds and Rust”
The Blue Dot Sessions, “TwoPound,” “Coulis Coulis,” “Delmendra,” “No Smoking,” “Belle Anette,” “Rue Severine,” “Ranch Hand,” “Pastel de Nata,” “Khfett”
Lady Gaga, “Venus”Episode sponsor:
Support the show by becoming a patron or by just sending us a tip.
Tue, 12 Sep 2023 - 35min - 196 - Ep. 64 - Barbara Kruger's "Untitled (Your Body is a Battleground)" (1989)
In April 1989, Barbara Kruger - an artist, activist, and former magazine layout editor - created a flyer for a pro-choice women’s march in Washington, DC to protest the Supreme Court’s potential overturning of Roe vs. Wade. This flyer, though, was never meant to be a picket sign. Instead, it has become a timeless artwork all its own: directly addressing any viewer from any era, demanding they confront their own politics, and drawing the battle lines between all the external - and internal - tensions that exist not only within the parameters of the abortion debate, but within women themselves.
Fri, 4 Aug 2023 - 30min - 195 - Ep. 63 - James Abbot McNeill Whistler's "Symphony in White No. 1: The White Girl" (1861-62)
Whether for his critics, his friends(...?), or his canvases, the Victorian-era, Gilded-age Aesthetic ex-pat painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler had one motto: float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.
Wed, 5 Jul 2023 - 32min - 194 - Ep. 62 - Helen Frankenthaler's "Madame Butterfly" (2000)
Splotches, spills, and stains. They can evoke shapes, moods, energy, even music. Yet no one seemed to appreciate their very beauty with the same intuitive, delicate flair as Helen Frankenthaler, who created something fiercely new "between cocktails and dinner," or, more accurately, between the broad shoulders of a relentlessly masculine movement. Not bad for a saddle-shoed girl a year out of Bennington.
Wed, 7 Jun 2023 - 27min - 191 - Bonus - The Lonely Palette Live at On Air Fest (and an update!)
Happy 7th birthday, The Lonely Palette! We're ringing in our itch with an quick update on next season, which starts in June, and a recording of our live show at On Air Fest, which was held in Brooklyn this past February.
Please enjoy this revamped and refreshed episode of Mary Kelly's "Post-Partum Document," smash that subscribe button, and we'll see you next month.
See the episode images:
bit.ly/411KA0FSupport the show:
www.patreon.com/lonelypaletteThu, 4 May 2023 - 39min - 188 - TLP Interview with Avery Trufelman, Design & Fashion Podcaster
A number of years ago, my Twitter pinged. Then it pinged again. All of a sudden, a whole host of people were following the show, and when I giddily found the source, it was the soulful and stylish Avery Trufelman, longtime 99% Invisible producer, currently of Articles of Interest, and fashionista tastemaker, who had pronounced The Lonely Palette her favorite art history podcast. Bestill my heart! It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship, a kinship between co-founders of a mutual admiration society where the stories of stuff - art, objects, design, things, everything they say you can’t put on the radio - reigned supreme. Avery and I popped into our respective closets to chat about writing, audio, art, fashion, the trappings of podcast success, storytelling in a heated political climate, trusting your voice, that infamous cerulean blue scene in The Devil Wears Prada, ranking the heroes of epic poetry, and much more.
Fri, 30 Dec 2022 - 1h 10min - 187 - Ep. 61 - Under the Midnight Sun
They say that those who can do and those who can’t teach. But “they” don’t seem to have ever met a proper teacher. In honor of the Norwegian town of Bodø’s recognition as a 2024 European Capital of Culture, we dive into Bodø’s most famous artist, Adelsteen Normann, the teacher you’ve never heard of, the picture-postcard modernist who introduced us to the scream that is Edvard Munch, and, eclipsed though he may have been, the painter who illuminated both the town that loved and the students he nurtured with the warmth of a sun that never set. This episode was produced in partnership with Bodø2024: European Capital of Culture.
Fri, 16 Dec 2022 - 29min - 186 - Ep. 60 - Caravaggio's "The Crucifixion of St. Andrew" (1607)
Light and dark. Frozen action. Angels with dirty faces. Infamously both a hothead punk and one of the most extraordinarily potent and subtle painters in the canon, Caravaggio is nothing if not a man of contrasts.
Fri, 9 Dec 2022 - 37min - 185 - TLP Interview with Dar Williams, Singer-Songwriter
Dar Williams has been described by The New Yorker as “one of America’s very best singer-songwriters,” but to thirteen-year-old Tamar she was, quite simply, a personal hero: a songwriter whose poetry, poignancy, and humor could capture at once the authentic voices of an inner child, a searching young adult, and a wizened sage. We met in person in 2013 at Dar’s songwriting retreat, and our friendship has been evolving ever since, exploring together the rigors of writing and storytelling through sound and song, and what it means to dip in and out of a creative space as a way of simply getting through the day.
Dar has recently published a book about songwriting that is chock full of philosophical wisdom and applicable nuggets, many of which borne from a decade of retreats. We sat down together to talk about songwriting, art museums, the art of writing songs about art, and specifically her evocative, ambivalent "Mark Rothko Song," which tackles it all head-on.
[2:05] Dar’s relationship with museums and creating a space for poetic thinking.
[8:40] Specific museums, exhibitions, paintings that have inspired Dar’s songs: Dia, “Made in America,” the Fogg.
[11:45] Writing Mark Rothko Song. Where did Dar go? Where did Dar really go?
[14:45] The difficulties inherent in writing about art. What prompted the writing of this song? Dar’s first encounter with Rothko’s “Untitled (Blue Green)” and the first verse.
[20:15] Diving into the prosody of the song, how the music and lyrics support the voice of the song: finger picking, major to minor, chord to chord, key to key, mood to mood.
[27:41] Return to the lyrics and narrative. The way that Rothko encourages people to make subjective associations…but then comes the foil of the second verse, creating the contrast between subjective and objective.
[33:52] The song’s dueling (or complementary?) aha moments in the bridge and final verse. People both love Rothko and struggle to connect to him. Following the narrator’s journey as she wrestles with seeing something versus knowing something.
[45:47] Appreciating an honest song about art viewing that doesn’t flatten the characters. Reflecting on the elements of the song that hold up as Dar has gotten older.
[51:19] The similarities between art museums and songwriting retreats: opening up, engaging poetic thinking.
[55:28] Also the hazards of living in a space of poetic thinking, especially as a parent. The necessary objectivity of the caretaking space.
[1:02:20] The “Five Things” Rule, and whether Mark Rothko might just be the exception that proves the rule. Tamar meets her Rothko and gives hope to kind pedestrians everywhere.
[1:09:14] Mark Rothko Song in full.
Music Used:
Dar Williams, “When I Was A Boy”; “Mark Rothko Song” (live); “The Beauty Of The Rain”; “Mark Rothko Song” (album version)Episode Webpage:
bit.ly/3RJm9AkSupport the Show:
www.patreon.com/lonelypaletteFri, 7 Oct 2022 - 1h 13min - 184 - TLP Interview with Adam Gopnik, Critic, The New Yorker
There isn’t a single subject that Adam Gopnik’s prose can’t bring to life. As staff writer at the New Yorker since 1986, he has written, just in the last year, about Proust, gun control, the Beatles, and the Marquis de Lafayette, but it’s when he starts writing about art that things get particularly delectable: “the runny, the spilled…the lipstick-traces-left-on-the-kleenex” life and style of Helen Frankenthaler; “the paint, laid on with a palette knife, that deliciously resembles cake frosting” technique of Florine Stettheimer; “the monumental and mock-monumental that tango in the imagination” of Claes Oldenburg. And perhaps the reason why Gopnik, who has a graduate degree in art history from NYU’s Institute of Fine Art, is able to write about art with such lucidness and latitude is that he isn’t just knowledgeable about art; he adores it. The charge, the perfume, the misty spray of the orange peel that is evoked when you stand in the Arena Chapel - everything that, if you’re not careful, becoming a professional in your creative field will neutralize. We talked about being docents in large museums, how to hook your audience, how to write a poem about art, Vladimir Tatlin, Steve Martin, Stephen Sondheim, the incompatible forces that create beauty, and the noble truths of art creating and art writing: eye to hand, and I to you.
Fri, 2 Sep 2022 - 1h 07min - 183 - TLP Interview with Dr. Charlotte Mullins, Art Critic & Broadcaster
Art history textbooks, so excellent for flattening curled-up rug corners and holding open doors, are expected to tell us the entire story of our civilization, one painting at a time. It's more than any book, even one that weighs a spine-crunching twenty-five pounds, should be expected to do. And it opens our eyes to the way that history is narrated, and taught, and even, it follows, to how paintings are displayed, and museums are curated. So much is touched on; so much is left out. It's too much, and far too little, all at once. Dr. Charlotte Mullins has decided to lean into the brevity, and in doing so, manages to tell us so much more. In her new book, "A Little History of Art," she tells the story of 100,000 years of art history, in, in her words, language akin to a haiku, every word intentionally chosen, every artwork telling its own story. She turns us into time-travelers in a scant 300 pages. We talked about reading art history, teaching art history, writing art history, and much more. Charlotte is the art critic for Country Life and has written for specialist titles and newspapers including the Financial Times, Telegraph, Independent on Sunday, RA Magazine, Art in America and Tate Magazine. A former editor of Art Quarterly, V&A Magazine and Art Review, she has appeared on BBC TV arts programmes and is a regular on BBC Radio 4's Front Row and Radio 3's Free Thinking. She is the author of more than a dozen books including a monograph on Rachel Whiteread and A Little Feminist History of Art, both for Tate, and the internationally acclaimed Painting People, and its companion volume Picturing People, both for Thames & Hudson.
Fri, 26 Aug 2022 - 57min - 181 - Ep. 59 - Sarah Sze's "Fallen Sky" (2021)
What goes up into the sky must come down into the earth, and fortunately for us we’ve got Sarah Sze, mistress of materials, memory, and meaning, helming the journey. This episode was produced with support from Storm King Art Center.
Fri, 3 Jun 2022 - 31min - 180 - Ep. 58 - Odili Donald Odita's "Cut" (2016)
Betcha never realized how deeply color colored your world - and the world - until you found yourself dancing down the diagonal of this showstopping print. This episode was produced in partnership with the Harvard Art Museums. The exhibition "Prints from the Brandywine Workshop and Archives: Creative Communities" is on view until July 31, 2022.
Thu, 28 Apr 2022 - 27min - 179 - Ep. 57 - Juno, A Colossal Roman Statue (late 1st c. BCE)Thu, 31 Mar 2022 - 32min
- 175 - Ep. 56 - Memorials (Collaboration with Hi-Phi Nation)
When tragedy strikes an individual, a nation, or an entire people, artists and architects are tasked with designing a public display that memorializes the event and its victims. But how do you do that? In this episode, we explore the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin, the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial in DC, the 9/11 Memorial, and others, to look at how respecting and remembering loss collides with the demands of history and politics. Why do abstract, rather than representational, memorials resonate more profoundly in recent years? And no matter how well done they are, will they inevitably lose their impact after a single generation? This episode of The Lonely Palette was produced in collaboration with Slate’s Hi-Phi Nation.
Wed, 22 Dec 2021 - 50min - 174 - Ep. 55 - Harriet Powers' "Pictorial Quilt" (1895-98)
Quilts, and textiles in general, have a funny way of being overlooked by the fine art world. They’re dismissed as craft, as outsider, as “women’s work,” or as potentially uninteresting museum exhibits. But some quilts, and some quilters, tell their stories, explain our histories, and simply refuse to be denied.
Fri, 29 Oct 2021 - 28min - 173 - Ep. 54 - Grant Wood's "American Gothic" (1930)
A man. A woman. A window. A pitchfork. It’s the most seemingly straightforward double portrait to come out of rural America, and yet it’s become synonymous with ambiguity and mystery, parody and polarization. Amazing how hungry we are to turn a portrait of an artist’s hometown spirit into a portrait of a larger American cultural moment, no matter what it meant to them then, or what it means to us now.
Thu, 30 Sep 2021 - 31min - 171 - TLP Interview with Dr. Rachel Saunders, Curator, Harvard Art Museums
Like so many of us, Dr. Rachel Saunders had a tough 2020. As the curator of Asian art at the Harvard Art Museums, she was thrilled to co-curate, with professor Yukio Lippit, the exhibition "Painting Edo: Japanese Art from the Feinberg Collection," the largest single exhibition the museum had ever mounted. And then, a month after its opening, it was shuttered by Covid, and remained closed until the entire exhibition came down early last month. But what could have been a bitter disappointment actually became exceptionally educational - perhaps par for the course at a prestigious university art museum, but with far-reaching implications for museums everywhere. Because when we talk about accessibility - and inaccessibility - in this context, we start to think about it in every context. How accessible are museums, ever? How cross-cultural are our conversations? How do art historians wrestle with and decide on narratives? And how do we honor the multiplicity of these objects' histories while still making them present, today? I sat down with Dr. Saunders this past May, the last month that the exhibition was still up on the gallery walls but still behind locked doors, and we dove into these issues and more.
Fri, 23 Jul 2021 - 59min - 170 - Bonus - Look With Your Ears No. 3: The Urban Sublime
The Lonely Palette is collaborating with the Addison Gallery of American Art in celebration of the museum's 90th anniversary! In this episode, we're using the Addison's collection to explore the American city in the same way that art history has been looking at landscape since time immemorial: what it represents, what stories it tells us about ourselves, what stories it leaves out, what it replaces, and how its relationship to the human figure is as fraught and dramatic as any relationship you'll ever find on a canvas.
Tue, 15 Jun 2021 - 23min - 169 - Ep. 53 - Painting Edo, Post-Pandemic
The world is reopening just as Harvard's special exhibition "Painting Edo: Japanese Art from the Feinberg Collection" is permanently closing, having been open to the public for one heartbreakingly short month. But the exhibition, which documented the Edo period in all its diverse, aesthetic richness, doesn't have to be in front of you to describe its uncannily Buddhist and modernist moment, or to share in the strange lightness of ours. This episode was produced with support from Harvard Art Museums.
Tue, 8 Jun 2021 - 31min - 168 - Bonus - Look With Your Ears No. 2: The Figure
The Lonely Palette is collaborating with the Addison Gallery of American Art in celebration of the museum's 90th anniversary! In this episode, we're using the Addison's collection to explore the figure, which, in art history, is almost exclusively the object of the gaze. But what does it mean when the body – that is, the multi-dimensional person who inhabits it – steps behind the lens as well to take back control?
Tue, 1 Jun 2021 - 21min - 167 - Bonus - Look With Your Ears No. 1: Abstraction
The Lonely Palette is collaborating with the Addison Gallery of American Art in celebration of the museum's 90th anniversary! In this episode, we're using the Addison's collection to explore abstraction, i.e. the one guaranteed way to alienate your visitor. Or...maybe not? Maybe, when it comes to art without a fixed meaning, our presence is requested, and even required?
Tue, 18 May 2021 - 22min - 166 - Trailer - Look With Your Ears (in partnership with the Addison Gallery of American Art)
In honor of the Addison Gallery of American Art's 90th anniversary, we've teamed up to release a three-part podcast series! We'll be taking a thematic view of their diverse and world class collection, exploring abstraction, the figure, and the urban sublime. New episodes will be released on The Lonely Palette feed every two weeks beginning Tuesday, May 18th.
Wed, 12 May 2021 - 01min - 164 - Ep. 52 - Ólafur Elíasson's "Untitled (Spiral)" (2017)
The Danish-Icelandic artist Ólafur Elíasson is understandably inspired by the natural elements. But what we might not necessarily glean at first glance - of, say, a gallery pumped full of precipitation, or a simple spinning spiral - is that these elements can inspire us to change the world.
Thu, 1 Apr 2021 - 31min - 162 - Ep. 51 - Mary Kelly's "Post-Partum Document" (1973-79)Thu, 18 Feb 2021 - 36min
- 160 - TLP Interview with Ralph Steadman, Artist & Illustrator
You’ve seen the work of 84-year-old Welsh artist and illustrator Ralph Steadman, even if you haven’t realized it. His searing political caricature and trademark flying ink spatter have illustrated major works of literature and journalism for the past half-century – and most notably the hallucinogenic writing of Hunter S. Thompson, resulting in an alchemic collaboration that wove together journalism and illustration to create what history has described as Gonzo, and what Steadman calls the meeting between an ex-Hell’s Angel with a shaved head and a matted-haired geek with string warts. We spoke in advance of his new retrospective, “Ralph Steadman: A Life in Ink,” and talked about this storied, ink-stained career: what it means to illustrate depravity, how a caricature can capture both body and soul, and where to look for the ever-present birdsong that undergirds our current doom.
Sat, 19 Dec 2020 - 36min - 159 - Ep. 50 - Carrie Mae Weems' "Not Manet's Type" (1997)
To appreciate art history is to appreciate that there is a canon: it is constructed by art historians, it guides what is taught, bought, and collected by art museums, it can’t allow people in without keeping other people out. And the photographer Carrie Mae Weems has some thoughts about it.
Fri, 4 Dec 2020 - 34min - 158 - TLP Interview with The Guerrilla Girls, Feminist Activists & Artists
The Guerrilla Girls, the self-professed "Conscience of the Art World," are a band of feminist activist artists, who have been wearing gorilla masks in public and using facts, humor, and outrageous visuals to expose gender, ethnic bias, and corruption in the art world since the mid-1980s. Join Tamar for a conversation with two of their founding members.
Fri, 13 Nov 2020 - 46min - 157 - Ep. 49 - Claes Oldenburg's "Giant Toothpaste Tube" (1964)
Somewhere between the life of the mind and the boots on the ground sits Pop artist Claes Oldenburg, who wants us to see not only that both of those worlds are one and the same, but that there's value, and even beauty, to our stuff, and that maybe we can finally let ourselves admit it.
Thu, 10 Sep 2020 - 36min - 156 - Episode 48 - Anselm Kiefer's "Margarete and Sulamith" (1981)
The art of postwar German artist Anselm Kiefer and the poetry of Holocaust survivor Paul Celan have a lot in common. They’re both layered, dense, hard to read, and most of the time you’re not quite sure if you get it. And while this might seem like an onerous way to understand history, sometimes the best starting point is through the layered, dense, and idiosyncratic way that an individual processes trauma. So grab a spelunking hardhat and together we'll mine these layers of metaphor and materials, texture and text, golden straw and blackened ash, that comprise the unimaginable.
Mon, 3 Aug 2020 - 55min - 151 - Ep. 47 - George Seurat's "A Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte" (1884-86)
Grab a parasol, put your monkey on a leash, and come spend Sunday in the Park with George, exploring how a canvas this monumental and as frozen as Dippin' Dots can help us better understand the world in his day, in Cameron Frye's, and in our own.
Mon, 4 May 2020 - 32min - 149 - Ep. 40 Re-Release - Frida Kahlo's "Dos Mujeres (Salvadora y Herminia)" (1928)
The Lonely Palette is currently the podcast-in-residence at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, highlighting five objects from the ongoing exhibition "Women Take the Floor." This week: we go beneath the flowers, the unibrow, the broken body, and the shadow of her marriage, to reframe the fame of Frida Kahlo: the Cult Icon of Humanness.
Sun, 29 Mar 2020 - 36min - 148 - Ep. 46 - Patty Chang's "Melons (At A Loss)" (1998)
The Lonely Palette is currently the podcast-in-residence at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, highlighting five objects from the ongoing exhibition "Women Take the Floor." This week: you're rooted in place, unable to look away, and questioning everything you thought you know about femininity, self-nourishment, and a woman's right to her own body. Basically, Patty Chang's got you right where she wants you.
Sun, 22 Mar 2020 - 28min - 147 - Ep. 45 - Georgia O'Keeffe's "Deer's Skull with Pedernal" (1936)
The Lonely Palette is currently the podcast-in-residence at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, highlighting five objects from the ongoing exhibition "Women Take the Floor." This week: there's no better way to combat a world holding its breath than with a deep lungful of fresh Southwestern air, care of America's most misattributed painter of vagina flowers, Georgia O'Keeffe.
Sun, 15 Mar 2020 - 28min - 146 - Ep. 44 - Louise Bourgeois' "Pillar" (1949-50)
The Lonely Palette is currently the podcast-in-residence at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, highlighting five objects from the ongoing exhibition "Women Take the Floor." This week: you’ve never noticed the carnality of the body you live in, and the rawness of the emotions that live inside that body, until you find yourself spun into French-American sculptor Louise Bourgeois’s web.
Sun, 8 Mar 2020 - 24min - 145 - Ep. 43 - Carmen Herrera's "Blanco y Verde (no. 1)" (1962)
The Lonely Palette is currently the podcast-in-residence for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, highlighting five objects from the ongoing exhibition "Women Take the Floor." This week: let's join 104-year-old Cuban-American Hard Edge painter Carmen Herrera in celebrating the straight line, not just the shortest distance between two points, but the most infinitely beautiful as well.
Sun, 1 Mar 2020 - 23min - 143 - Ep. 42 - Katsushika Hokusai's The Great Wave off Kanagawa (1829–1831)
Sure, you've seen it a million times in a million memes, but when was the last time you actually stopped to contemplate the incredible power of this Japanese ukiyo-e print? Or for that matter, the incredible power of a wave itself?
Thu, 27 Feb 2020 - 36min - 142 - Ep. 41 - Jan Van Eyck's "Arnolfini Portrait" (1434)Sun, 1 Dec 2019 - 26min
- 139 - Bonus - Open Source, "The Bauhaus In Your House," ft. The Lonely Palette
The Lonely Palette is on break until November 2019, so every Wednesday in October, a different Hub & Spoke producer will take the host's chair to present an episode of their show that Tamar is especially fond of. Enjoy this month's podcast petri dish of art, culture, history, and society, and subscribe to any and all Hub & Spoke shows at www.hubspokeaudio.org. This week: Open Source with Christopher Lydon: "The Bauhaus in Your House," a conversation on art, architecture, and design with Tamar Avishai, Peter Chermayeff, Ann Beha, and Sebastian Smee. The Bauhaus was the art school in Germany that created the look of the twentieth century. We just live in it: loving its white-box affordability, or hating its stripped, blank, glass-and-steel uniformity, the world around. It’s the IKEA look in the twenty-first century, the look of Chicago skyscrapers and now Chinese housing towers, the look of American kitchens and probably the typeface on your emails. It was the less-is-more school that made ornament very nearly a crime. It stood, and stands, for a few big ideas still hotly contested. Listen to Open Source at www.radioopensource.org, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Wed, 9 Oct 2019 - 50min - 137 - Bonus - Artists of Camberville interviews Tamar Avishai
On July 29, 2019 (the day after the birth of my son!), host and producer Danielle Monroe posted this interview we had recorded the week before for her podcast "Artists of Camberville." This was one of best conversations I've ever had about the origins of "The Lonely Palette" and the trials and tribulations of art-viewing, meaning-making, script-writing, audio podcasting about the visual, and, like, a little bit about The Bachelorette. Enjoy!
Fri, 9 Aug 2019 - 32min - 136 - Ep. 40 - Frida Kahlo's "Dos Mujeres (Salvadora y Herminia)" (1928)
In which we go beneath the flowers, the unibrow, the broken body, and the shadow of her marriage, to reframe the fame of Frida Kahlo: the Cult Icon of Humanness.
Fri, 19 Jul 2019 - 37min - 135 - Ep. 39 - Rembrandt van Rijn's "Portrait of Aeltje Uylenburgh" (1632)
It isn't 17th century Dutch art if we're not going so deeply into Rembrandt's soul and so close to the meticulous details of his virtuosic portraiture that we make the guards nervous.
Fri, 7 Jun 2019 - 31min - 134 - TLP Interview with Dan Byers, Director of Harvard's Carpenter Center
Tamar met Dan when she was a worshipful high school freshman and he was (to her) an übercool junior who was not only the arts editor of Thoughtprints, the school's art/lit mag, but also spent his free time in the fine art studio, bending the charcoal like Beckmann. Now he's the Director of the Carpenter Center of Visual Arts at Harvard University, she's an art history podcaster, and they reconnected in the Busch-Reisinger galleries in front of Max Beckmann's "Self-Portrait in a Tuxedo" from 1927 to talk about self-portraiture, self-evolution, and the limitations of peaking in high school.
Fri, 5 Apr 2019 - 22min - 133 - Ep. 38 - Wassily Kandinsky's "Untitled" (1922)
The later work of Russian ex-pat turned German Expressionist turned indispensable Bauhaus faculty member Wassily Kandinsky is a lot like the Bauhaus itself: a disparate collection of pieces parts that ends up assembling itself into a transparent, efficient, powerfully cohesive, form-follows-function whole. This episode was a collaboration with WBUR's Radio Open Source: check them out at radioopensource.org, and listen to their show on the Bauhaus Centennial on April 11, 2019 at 9:00pm EDT on 90.9 WBUR Boston.
Fri, 29 Mar 2019 - 30min - 132 - Ep. 37 - Ansel Adams' "The Tetons and Snake River, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming" (1942)
Let's explore America the Beautiful, the Complicated, and the Contradictory, where a purple mountain has no sense of its own majesty, through the lens of the quintessential dorm room poster photographer Ansel Adams.
Fri, 15 Mar 2019 - 31min - 131 - Ep. 36 - Behold the Monkey
The fruits of the Second Annual Year-End Patreon Listener Challenge has us staring directly into the cold dead eyes of the beast! How could this restoration of a forgotten 19th century Spanish fresco have gotten so grotesquely botched, and what does it tell us about the challenges of art restoration, religious iconography, and iconoclasm? And more importantly, Jesus, why do you look like a shark?
Thu, 31 Jan 2019 - 40min - 130 - TLP Interview with Cecilia Vicuña, Poet & Artist
On October 10, 2018, both the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and Cecilia Vicuña herself were generous enough to give me the opportunity to take a few moments away from the installation of "Disappeared Quipu" and interview Vicuña. We talked about bridging the masculinity of Land Art and the femininity of Fiber Art, the origins of Vicuña's life as an artist, and how her own awareness has evolved throughout her career.
Sun, 16 Dec 2018 - 19min - 129 - Ep. 35 - Cecilia Vicuña's "Disappeared Quipu" (2018)
Thick woolen knots, suspended from the ceiling, alive with projections and immersed in sound. You might not realize that Chilean artist Cecilia Vicuña has woven together your awareness of your own awareness, but maybe you just needed some help translating it.
Sun, 16 Dec 2018 - 31min - 128 - Ep. 34 - Dance Dance Revolution
We're trying a little something different today: what happens when Disney scares the pants off you as a kid, and then, in mining the roots of your existential dread, you realize that Henri Matisse and Igor Stravinsky both had their pants scared off too, and that explains a whole heck of a lot about early 20th century modernism? Let's find out together.
Thu, 15 Nov 2018 - 41min - 127 - Ep. 33 - Jean-Honoré Fragonard's "The Desired Moment" (c. 1770)
Powder those wigs and ungird those loins: today we're diving deep into the curves, pastels, and licentious yearnings of a ridiculously saucy little style known as Rococo.
Fri, 14 Sep 2018 - 30min - 126 - Ep. 32 - René Magritte's "The Son of Man" (1964)
Ever have a day when you just feel a little... blocked? Well, sure as God made little green apples, Surrealist René Magritte feels you.
Wed, 29 Aug 2018 - 29min - 125 - Ep. 31 - Hiroshi Sugimoto's "Byrd Theater, Richmond, 1993" (1993)
Trying to capture time in art is like trying to pin a wave upon the sand or hold a moonbeam in your hand. So leave it to Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto to do it so effectively by taking us to the Golden Age of Cinema.
Fri, 13 Jul 2018 - 31min - 124 - Ep. 30 - Donatello's "Madonna of the Clouds" (c. 1425-1435)
Join the OG Ninja Turtle as he guides you into the Renaissance by way of an exquisite tour of heaven.
See the images.
Music Used:
The Andrews Sisters, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen"
Lobo Loco, "Piano Cora Theme"
The Blue Dot Sessions, "UpUpUp and Over", "Slow Line Stomp", "Lakeside Path", "Perspiration", "Threads and Veils", "Moon Bicycle Theme"
Joe Dassin, “Les Champs-Elysees"Support the show by becoming a patron or by just sending us a tip.
Thu, 31 May 2018 - 25min - 123 - Ep. 29 - Egon Schiele's "Nude Self-Portrait" (1910)
Welcome to the cult of the punk: where the skin is flayed, the contortions are twisty, and the struggle is real. So why can't we get enough?
Music used:
The Andrews Sisters, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen"The Blue Dot Sessions, "Taoudella", "Fifteen Street", "Smooth Stone", "Scraper", "Then A Gambling Problem", "Warm Fingers", "Chrome and Wax"Support the show by becoming a patron or by just sending us a tip.
Fri, 27 Apr 2018 - 29min - 122 - Ep. 28 - Yoko Ono's "Cut Piece" (1964)
Yoko Ono. You may have heard of her. She hooked up with that musician that time. Just under the wire, we end Women's History Month with a peek beneath Ono's art and reputation - and why we need to reconsider both.
Music used:
The Andrews Sisters, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen"
The Blue Dot Sessions, "Plaster Combo", "Valantis", "Strange Dog Walk", "Hundred Mile", "Down at the Bank""
Joe Dassin, “Les Champs-Elysees"Support the show by becoming a patron or by just sending us a tip.
Fri, 30 Mar 2018 - 27min - 121 - Ep. 27 - Roy Lichtenstein's "Ohhh... Alright..." (1964)
Can a comic strip be elevated to fine art? Or is Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein just plain dotty?
Music used:
The Andrews Sisters, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen"
The Blue Dot Sessions, "Le Marais", "The Molerat", "Lemon and Melon", "Via Verre", "Lord Weasel", "Entrap"
Joe Dassin, “Les Champs-Elysees"Support the show by becoming a patron or by just sending us a tip.
Wed, 7 Mar 2018 - 24min - 120 - Bonus - Keepers of the Culture (Live Event at the PRX Podcast Garage)
In this special episode, we listen to the audio from the live event at the PRX Podcast Garage, "Keepers of the Culture: A Celebration of Meduna and Holmes," which I had the privilege of participating in at the end of January. In it I chat with collage artist Ekua Holmes, play her some audio I produced on her work, and then we listen to art historian Barry Gathier give the curator talk to end all curator talks on art, artists, viewers, and why we do what we do.
Special thanks to PRX, the PRX Podcast Garage, and WGBH.
Support the show by becoming a patron or by just sending us a tip.
Thu, 15 Feb 2018 - 36min - 119 - Ep. 26 - C.M. Coolidge's "Dogs Playing Poker" (1903)
Your Listener Patreon Challenge has been accepted! And now, let's dive together into kitsch: the frequency low enough for us all to hear.
Music used:
The Andrews Sisters, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen"
The Blue Dot Sessions, "Rose Ornamental," "Flattered," "Arizona Moon," "Laser Focus," "Alchemical," "Two in the Back," "Maisie Dreamer," "Gullwing Sailor," "Maldoc"
Joe Dassin, “Les Champs-Elysees"Support the show by becoming a patron or by just sending us a tip.
Thu, 15 Feb 2018 - 37min - 28 - Ep. 25 - Mission: Mona Lisa
Our lady of the hour, muse of Dan Brown, satisfier of bucket lists, those eyes, that smile, La Gioconda, El Hefe. Just in time for the holidays, we bring you a super-sized episode on a super-sized love affair with a dinky little portrait.
Music used:
The Andrews Sisters, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen"
The Blue Dot Sessions, "Tar and Spackle", "Welcome Home Sonny", "Caprese", "Tiny Putty", "Festering", "Inamorata", "Sunset at Sandy Isle", "Spins and Never Falls"
Nat King Cole, "Mona Lisa"
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Fri, 22 Dec 2017 - 47min - 27 - Ep. 24 - Meditations on Mark Rothko
Whether you think Mark Rothko is the portal to spiritual transcendence or emotional-ambulance-chasing bunk, let's take the necessary time to explore his work without feeling like our souls are at stake.
Music used:
The Andrews Sisters, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen"
The Blue Dot Sessions, "A Simple Blur", "Thematic", "Cases to Rest", "Plate Grayscale", "Drone Thistle," "Sage the Hunter"
Dar Williams, "Mark Rothko Song"
Joe Dassin, “Les Champs-Elysees"
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Tue, 21 Nov 2017 - 29min - 26 - Ep. 23 - Umberto Boccioni's "Unique Forms of Continuity in Space" (1913)
At the intersection of past and future sits a pack of hormonal dudes punching each other and making beautiful art.
Music used:
The Andrews Sisters, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen"
Podington Bear, "Kaleidoscope"
The Blue Dot Sessions, "Chase and We Follow", "The Telling", "Trelaga", "Thirteens"
Joe Dassin, “Les Champs-Elysees"
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Tue, 31 Oct 2017 - 24min - 25 - Bonus - Introducing Hub & Spoke (by way of Soonish)
The Lonely Palette is thrilled to announce that we're a founding member of Hub & Spoke, a brand spanking new collective of Boston-centric, idea-driven podcasts. To kick things off, we're proud to present an episode of Soonish, the podcast about the future, hosted by veteran technology journalist Wade Roush. This episode, "Can Technology Save Museums?" not only asks some important questions about the future of art museums, but features me telling The Lonely Palette's origin story (spoiler: I say puke a lot). Learn more about Soonish and Hub & Spoke: http://www.thelonelypalette.com/episodes/2017/10/24/special-episode-10-introducing-hub-spoke-by-way-of-soonish Music used: The Blue Dot Sessions, "When In The West", "Cases to Rest"
Wed, 25 Oct 2017 - 37min - 24 - Ep. 22 - Jasper Johns' "Target" (1961)
Ceci n'est pas un target, and other bewildering and profound pronouncements by conceptual neo-Dadaist (with abstract Pop Art sensibilities) Jasper Johns.
Music used:
The Andrews Sisters, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen"
The Blue Dot Sessions, "Soothe", "Helado", "Chapel Donder", "The Summit"
Jason Leonard, "Ritual Six"
Joe Dassin, “Les Champs-Elysees"
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Wed, 27 Sep 2017 - 22min - 23 - Ep. 21 - Mary Cassatt's "In the Loge" (1878)
So. It appears that art history has a woman problem.
Music used:
The Andrews Sisters, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen"
The Blue Dot Sessions, "Waterborne", "Pat Dog", "Partly Sage", "Illway", "Turning to You", "Horizon Liner", "Soothe"
Joe Dassin, “Les Champs-Elysees”
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Tue, 5 Sep 2017 - 27min - 22 - Ep. 20 - Henryk Ross's Photographs of the Lodz Ghetto (1940-44)
In this special episode, we look at the exhibition Memory Unearthed: Henryk Ross’s Photographs of the Lodz Ghetto, and explore the Lodz ghetto specifically, Holocaust photography more generally, and the role our need for a good story has played in shaping our understanding of both.
Memory Unearthed was on view at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston until July 30, 2017.
Music Used: The Blue Dot Sessions, "Doghouse", "Drone Pine", "Drone Birch", "3rd Chair", "Our Fingers Cold"
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Tue, 4 Jul 2017 - 24min - 21 - Ep. 19 - Guanyin, Bodhisattva of Compassion (Song Dynasty, 12th c. CE)
Take a load off as you relax into this Song Dynasty masterpiece. You're going to be here for a while. See the image: http://www.thelonelypalette.com/episodes/2017/6/13/episode-19-guanyin-bodhisattva-of-compassion-song-dynasty-12th-c-ce Music used: The Andrews Sisters, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen" The Blue Dot Sessions, "Masonry", "Exceter Lask", "Hickory Interlude", "Copper Halls", "Feathering", "Inside the Paper Crane", "Doghouse" Joe Dassin, “Les Champs-Elysees”
Tue, 13 Jun 2017 - 23min - 20 - Ep. 18 - JMW Turner's "The Slave Ship" (1840)
Because it's hard to look directly into the sun. Or yourself.
Music used:
The Andrews Sisters, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen"
The Blue Dot Sessions, "Sunday Lights", "Town Market", "Rapids", "Liptis", "Ballast", "Masonry"
Joe Dassin, “Les Champs-Elysees”
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Tue, 23 May 2017 - 23min - 18 - Ep. 17 - Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain" (1917)
On the occasion of its hundredth birthday, we dive into the art world's greatest joke (splash!).
Music Used:
Podington Bear, "A1 Rogue", "In My Head"
The Andrews Sisters, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen"
The Blue Dot Sessions, "In The Back Room", "Rafter", "FasterFasterBrighter", "Nesting", "Lamplist"
Joe Dassin, “Les Champs-Elysees”
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Tue, 18 Apr 2017 - 26min - 17 - Ep. 16 - Vincent Van Gogh's "Postman Joseph Roulin" (1888)
You've just had a manic break, cut off a piece of your ear, and gifted it to a prostitute. Who ya gonna call? Your get-a-grip postman friend, of course!
Music used:
The Andrews Sisters, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen"
The Blue Dot Sessions, "Step In Step Out", "Scratcher", "Over the Fence", "Scalloped", "On Belay"
Lee Rosevere, "Curiosity"
Joe Dassin, “Les Champs-Elysees”
Podington Bear, "A1 Rogue"
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Wed, 29 Mar 2017 - 22min - 16 - Ep. 15 - El Anatsui's "Black River" (2009)
One man's trash is Ghanaian fiber artist El Anatsui's treasure.
Music used:
Podington Bear, "Down and Around"
The Andrews Sisters, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen"
The Blue Dot Sessions, "Coronea", "Mercurial Vision", "Stipple", "Our Quiet Company", "Step In Step Out"
Joe Dassin, “Les Champs-Elysees”
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Tue, 7 Mar 2017 - 21min - 15 - Ep. 14 - Paul Gauguin's "Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?" (1897-98)
The gospel according to Gauguin is basically an existential hodgepodge that you and I were never supposed to understand.
Music used:
The Andrews Sisters, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen"
The Blue Dot Sessions, "Flagger", "Pacing", "Open Flames", "One Quiet Conversation"
Mathieu Lamontagne & Emmanuel Toledo, "Point de vue"
Joe Dassin, “Les Champs-Elysees”
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Wed, 25 Jan 2017 - 23min - 14 - Ep. 13 - Edward Hopper's "Room in Brooklyn" (1932)
Welcome to Edward Hopper's specific, yet schematic, love letter to the alienation of the modern American city.
Music used:
The Andrews Sisters, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen"
The Blue Dot Sessions, "Lacquer Groove", "In Passage", "Cats Eye", "Tranceless", "Simple Melody", "Flagger"
Joe Dassin, “Les Champs-Elysees”
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Tue, 3 Jan 2017 - 20min - 13 - Ep. 12 - Jackson Pollock's "Number 10, 1949" (1949)
Dust off your verbs, it's time to make sense out of chaos.
Music used:
Eric Dolphy, "Out To Lunch"
The Andrews Sisters, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen"
The Blue Dot Sessions, "Parade Shoes", "Inessential", "City Limits", "Lacquer Groove"
Joe Dassin, “Les Champs-Elysees”
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Tue, 13 Dec 2016 - 20min - 12 - Ep. 11 - John Singer Sargent's "The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit" (1882)
The darlings, the crown jewels, the moneymakers. Just what the heck is it about these girls?!
Music used:
The Andrews Sisters, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen"
The Blue Dot Sessions, "Brass Buttons", "Heliotrope", "Vittoro", "Filing Away"
Lobo Loco, "White Shapes Beauty"
Joe Dassin, “Les Champs-Elysees”
Eric Dolphy, "Out To Lunch"
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Tue, 15 Nov 2016 - 21min - 11 - Ep. 10 - Piet Mondrian's "Composition with Red, Yellow, and Blue" (1927)
Think abstraction is totally inaccessible? Pull up a chair.
Music used:
The Andrews Sisters, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen"
The Blue Dot Sessions, "The Provisions", "A Certain Lightness", "A Rush of Clear Water", "Brass Buttons"
Lee Rosevere, "Puzzle Pieces"
Tamar Avishai, "Grid (after Sol LeWitt's Drawing Series)"
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Tue, 25 Oct 2016 - 20min - 10 - Ep. 9 - Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's "Reclining Nude" (1909)
The German Expressionists get hot. Nazis get bothered.
Music used:
The Andrews Sisters, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen"
David Szeszlay, "Night Surfing"
Michael Howard, "The Tallest Man in Idaho (Instrumental)"
Jason Leonard, "Ritual Twelve"
The Blue Dot Sessions, "Stilt", "Manele", "The Provisions" Joe Dassin, “Les Champs-Elysees”
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Tue, 4 Oct 2016 - 20min - 9 - Ep. 8 - Richard Serra's "Torqued Ellipses" (1996)
This big bully is about to give you a lesson in contrasts you won't soon forget. Featuring Dar Williams!
Music used:
The Andrews Sisters, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen"
The Blue Dot Sessions, "Turning", "Downhill Racer", "Cloud Line"
Lee Rosevere, "Reflections"
Dar Williams and the WASTM Good Times House Choir, "The Water is Wide"
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Tue, 20 Sep 2016 - 18min
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